Introduction

This project is how we look at the world and how they look back at us, we need to show the difference between mirrors and windows. John Szarkowski was a photographer who attempted to categorize photographers whose work reflected the subjectivity of the artist in comparison with those whose work largely sought to see outside themselves. John opened a mirror and window exhibition for all his photos for people to look at. This is a quote said by John in 1978:

“THE TWO CREATIVE MOTIVES THAT HAVE BEEN CONTRASTED HERE ARE NOT DISCRETE. ULTIMATELY EACH OF THE PICTURES IN THIS BOOK IS PART OF A SINGLE, COMPLEX, PLASTIC TRADITION. SINCE THE EARLY DAYS OF THAT TRADITION, AN INTERIOR DEBATE HAS CONTESTED ISSUES PARALLEL TO THOSE ILLUSTRATED HERE. THE PREJUDICES AND INCLINATIONS EXPRESSED BY THE PICTURES IN THIS BOOK SUGGEST POSITIONS THAT ARE FAMILIAR FROM OLDER DISPUTES. IN TERMS OF THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHY OF A HALF-CENTURY AGO, ONE MIGHT SAY THAT ALFRED STIEGLITZ IS THE PATRON OF THE FIRST HALF OF THIS BOOK AND EUGÈNE ATGET OF THE SECOND. IN EITHER CASE, WHAT ARTIST COULD WANT A MORE DISTINGUISHED SPONSOR? THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THEM IS TO BE MEASURED NOT IN TERMS OF THE RELATIVE FORCE OR ORIGINALITY OF THEIR WORK, BUT IN TERMS OF THEIR CONCEPTIONS OF WHAT A PHOTOGRAPH IS: IS IT A MIRROR, REFLECTING A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST WHO MADE IT, OR A WINDOW, THROUGH WHICH ONE MIGHT BETTER KNOW THE WORLD?”

Blind drawing:

The blind drawing was a task we had to try and attempt, this was based on a lady named Anna Luca who started blind drawing and she explained that how to do it you need to get two different coloured pencils and one will be for outside seeings and the other will be for inside seeing. You then need paper and when you play whatever movie, you draw what you see without looking at the paper with each pencil. In my class, we played a movie based on photography and we tried this task, below is my attempt on this and I used green as inside and red as outside.

MIRROR WINDOW SPECTRUM

For this topic, I need to get two pictures that I think are windows and mirrors and explain them and the difference.

In class, we put some photos in these two categories so that we know what a mirror photo looks like and what a window photo looks like.

Take time to explain how a mirror is about subjectivity and a window is about objectivity.
Mirror: this is about the inner feelings of the artist and the photograph is saying something about them.
Window: This is about seeing as the world is, appreciating the beauty of a flower, for example.

Mirror

Mirror pictures are pictures that can represent the inner feelings or life of the artist and the photos would be saying something about their feelings or their past/future life. This is a way of how you can tell if a picture is a mirror picture.

This is an example of a mirror picture, you can tell this is a mirror picture because this photo is representing the photographer’s feelings and this photo is explaining that she was in a state where she would be in a relationship part of her life and she would be going out a lot and doing other things.

Window

This is a window picture because I think it looks like a scene of a person looking out their window and this is what they see, and it gives of the vibe of the olden days because its in black and white.

Window pictures are pictures about the world and its beauty of it, so it would also be things like nature, people, etc.., if you want to be able to tell if a picture is a window picture just look out for pictures showing the outside world and the artist giving attention to it in photos.

My own mirror and window photos:

Mirror

For this mirror topic, I need to take photos that reflect myself, my thoughts, and my beliefs whatever I want that could be good for this topic. My final choice for this is I want to do photos based on anxiety because i have anxiety but i also wanted to do another topic which is anorexia, i don’t have anorexia but i thought this would be a good idea to take photos and it would go well with the anxiety pictures. I took these photos of my cousin and the only light we used was her bedroom light which actually worked well with the camera as it also gave the photos good lighting and she helped me on these photos because some of these photos were her ideas and some of them were mine. I then edited these pictures to make sure they actually give the vibe I’m wanting them to give, so i cropped them to make sure the photo is focusing on a certain part of her and then i had to change the photos into black and white which is the main part of editing for these photos.

Window

For this topic, I want to take photos of actual windows where you can see other windows outside the window you’re taking the photo from. I chose to do this window topic like this so that I could do something different but easy for me to do that will still look good.

These are the final photos i chose for my window topic, when i took these photos i went around my school and l was mainly looking for big windows because i feel like they will just look better in the photos. I edited these photos after to make the photos look more intense i think but i mainly edited them to make them a bit darker and i also cropped some closer in.

EVALUATION

WWW: what went well for this topic is i think the photoshoot turned out really good because i think i did well for it suiting the mirror topic for myself.

EBI: